Zitat des Tages über Satiriker / Satirist:
The satirist is prevented by repulsion from gaining a better knowledge of the world he is attracted to, yet he is forced by attraction to concern himself with the world that repels him.
In a more intellectually rigorous age, I wouldn't be talked about as a satirist at all. I would just be a topical comedian.
I have tremendous affection for New York and my life, but I'm a satirist at heart. And it's easy to satirize New York.
A satirist is a man whose flesh creeps so at the ugly and the savage and the incongruous aspects of society that he has to express them as brutally and nakedly as possible in order to get relief.
The wit makes fun of other persons; the satirist makes fun of the world; the humorist makes fun of himself, but in so doing, he identifies himself with people - that is, people everywhere, not for the purpose of taking them apart, but simply revealing their true nature.
The satirist who writes nothing but satire should write but little - or it will seem that his satire springs rather from his own caustic nature than from the sins of the world in which he lives.
The satirist shoots to kill while the humorist brings his prey back alive and eventually releases him again for another chance.
It's true that none of my characters are admirable. But maybe I'm primarily a satirist, and a satirist needs to hold up what's not admirable.
I'm accused of, and perhaps rightly so, of not being mean enough. I've been taken to task in many a book review; a good satirist has to, you know, has to kill.
I'm not really a political satirist. I don't kid myself. I'm more interested in doing the mannerisms and the personality.
Minnesotans know the difference between the job of satirist and the job of senator. And so do I.
There's so much hate that we direct externally that we forget we have our own psychos. But that's the role of the satirist - you have to examine your own country and say, 'look!'
If you don't know Tom Lehrer, you should - in addition to being a classical pianist, mathematician, songwriter, satirist, researcher at Los Alamos and, he claims, inventor of the Jell-O shot, he is just delightfully funny and graceful.
Some critics of my work took the view that a satirist should defer to the finer feelings of his readers and respect widely held beliefs.
He has the obligation to society that any human being has. I don't think a satirist has any greater obligation to society than a bricklayer or anybody else.